Tennessee Vols: Three-Star QB Decommits From UT

The Tennessee Vols’ 2018 recruiting class can best be described as “fluid” at this point.

2018 three-star quarterback Michael Penix announced on Wednesday that he’s no longer committed to the Tennessee Vols.

Based on Penix’s decommitment note, it sounds like the staff at Tennessee wasn’t very high on the Florida native.

Penix, 6’1″/182 lbs from Tampa, FL, had been committed to the Vols since April. He received an offer from Florida State earlier this week. He also has notable offers from Arizona, Florida Atlantic, Indiana and Oregon, among several others.

It seems pretty clear that Penix would’ve signed with Tennessee if that’s what the new coaching staff wanted. Unfortunately for Penix, however, it appears they want to go a different direction with the quarterback position in this recruiting class.

Tennessee now has 12 commits to their 2018 recruiting class, though that is extremely fluid at this point.

Four-star quarterback Adrian Martinez is still technically committed to Tennessee, but his decommitment seems inevitable at this point.

Martinez recently removed all mentions of Tennessee from his Twitter bio, despite a recent visit from Jeremy Pruitt and Tyson Helton. Pruitt reportedly told Martinez that he would be able to compete for the starting job from day one, but he might like his chances of starting at Nebraska a bit better.

It would obviously not be a good look for the Vols to lose both of their 2018 quarterback commits in the same week. But I also think fans should trust Pruitt right now.

After all, Pruitt said in his introductory press conference not to worry about who Tennessee gets, or doesn’t get, during the early signing period. He stressed that he would “figure it out”.

Next: Early 2018 Week By Week Predictions

Hopefully the Vols can somehow still land a top 25 class.